Dip Him in the River: Project Archangel
by Teumessian
Summary: In a world were a very small percentage of the population become Changelings at a young age, life has never been kind to Dean, but things go completely insane when the Winchester brothers' strange shifts attract the attention of a mysterious organization, hellbent on the salvation of the Changeling race, and blue eyes follow him wherever he goes. This is a story of saviors-Dean/Cas
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings/Notes for whole story:** Swearing, violence, graphic sex, probably underage drinking. It is very low teen, can't remember how much swearing is in this chapter but I figured if it's not teen now it will be _very _quickly so warned ahead of time. Rating will go up in later Chapters. My lovely betas are Chanelle, Alix and Krista. Their support makes this story possible =] Also, couldn't it fit in the summary but the primary pairing in this fic is Dean/Cas.**  
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**Author's Notes: **This is my second foray into my changeling!verse. Series title is from one of William Blake's Proverbs of Hell. Each chapter will be titled with a different, complete Proverb of Hell.

**Chapter One:**

"_The cut worm forgives the plow."_

Sunlight, cooled by the morning fog, leaked through a dirty, single pane window into a small dorm. It was a one person room; almost all of the rooms on campus were singles, the usual for Academies.

On the cheap twin bed provided by the school, a large, furry body began to stir. Brown, pointed ears began to twitch and a dark nose snuffled as it caught the scent of the cup of coffee someone was carrying past the door. Lupine eyes blinked open to reveal irises that were green, not normal for a canine. At least, it was assumed they weren't normal. It wasn't like anyone had ever seen a _real _dire wolf. For all anyone knew they could have had shared the same forest eyes possessed by one Dean Winchester.

Dean sighed heavily as he rose, breath hissing out and nails digging into the blanket he hadn't bothered to slip under last night as he stretched, rear and tail raising high up into the air. Dean much preferred to sleep in his shifted form as opposed to his human one—at least when he slept alone, and with a pelt as thick as his, it got far too hot under the covers.

After a healthy arch of his back, Dean dropped to the floor, nails clicking on the linoleum and suddenly, instead of dark paw pads, there were pink toes pressed against the cold floor. Great expanses of tan skin chilled slightly, no longer protected by a thick pelt. Unfazed by his own nudity, Dean lifted his arms above his head to finish his series of stretches—there was a reason Changeling Academies provided single rooms; Dean wasn't alone in his preference for sleeping shifted and it wasn't unusual for Changeling's to slip unconsciously between their human and shifted forms while they slept.

Dean scratched short nails over his chest as he padded over to the window to look over the grounds of the Academy of Kansas, a place that he had considered a sort of home since he was fifteen. Just about to finish up his freshman year at the Academy community college, Dean knew this place like the back of his hand. He'd moved into the dorms at fifteen, but he'd been a student even longer than that, ever since Sam made his first shift at age eleven.

Thank god for that, too. Even the single year Dean had spent at a regular school after his own first shift had been hellish enough. Most kids went straight to Academies after their first shift, usually between the ages of nine and fourteen. There was controversy over how the practice enforced prejudice, almost coming off like segregation, but in all honesty the Academies were better equipped to handle the needs of young Changelings. It turned it into a complex issue that had actually been a keystone in a lot of political platforms in the last few elections. Not that Dean ever paid much attention to them; he had other things to worry about than the political correctness of Normal and Changeling schools.

Unfortunately, the population of Kansas only required one big public Academy, and it was hours away from Dean's childhood home in Lawrence. There was a little private one in Topeka, but they didn't have the money and Dean didn't have the grades for it. By thirteen, when he'd exploded into an ancient canine, Dean had already become Sam's primary care giver, so he couldn't just up and leave to go to some Academy, not when he was fairly sure their father even remembered how to take care of Sam by that point.

John Winchester had never been the same after Mary's death. He worked long hours, came home late and any time he did spend at home was spent sitting in an alcohol induced haze on the couch, lined face lit by the flickering television.

When Sam was young, he used to ask what was wrong with their father, and that was without any memories of the old John. As Sam grew older, he would get angry when he saw just how different John was from his school friend's parents. Dean used to tell him that he just missed Mom—Dean missed her, too. Sam was too young to remember anything about her. Dean, however, still very occasionally revisited the fuzzy memories of a kid who grew up on the day she died. Maybe that kid died, too.

In all honesty, Dean thought that was why John had spent so much time away from them in the years after Mary's death. John just saw too much of her in her children. Oh, well, Dean thought. John had joined her a few years back. These days Dean just avoided thinking or talking about it all together, not even to Sam. What would the point of that be?

Dean forced himself back into the present as he gazed out the fifth floor window of Carver Hall, a college dorm. Fog curled around the buildings, and it hugged the trees where the dorms were backed against the forests that ringed the Cheyenne Bottom Refuge. The Academy of Kansas backed right up to it. Changelings needed space to exercise their shifts, so Academies were usually build near forests and lakes, or open space at least.

The fog would burn off within the hour, Dean thought, as he felt the spring sun warm his chest and cheekbones, where freckles dotted his skin, expanse only broken by a leather chord and small gold amulet, a gift from his little brother. He never took it off, not even when he shifted, and he hadn't for years. He could walk around naked like this and feel totally comfortable, but be fully clothed with the necklace off and feel totally bare.

Dean let himself stand there a moment before another yawn split his now human mouth, and he turned to his dresser to get ready for the day.

. . .

Ten minutes later found Dean leaning against a retaining wall in front of another dorm, a few buildings down from Carver Hall. It was a big brick construction that hadn't been renovated since the 80's but it served its purpose and the high schoolers that it housed got used to its quirks—the over pressured shower heads, the way you had to pull on the doorknobs to get your key to turn. Dean remembered; he'd spent three years of his own life inside its walls, two in a room on the second floor, a rare double room that he had shared with Sam and one more in a single on the third floor after Sam had declared that he wanted a single like all his friends. If the room had just so happened to be right next the one assigned to Sam, Dean had nothing to say about that. And if Sam had actually let it drop when Dean assured him it was a complete coincidence, it was only because Dean was telling the truth.

Carver Hall housed only college students, but Ellison housed a conglomeration of middle schoolers and high schoolers.

Dean guessed he had to admit he understood why his younger brother was a little relieved when his brother moved out of Ellison and into a college dorm. By his senior year, Dean Winchester had developed quite the reputation as one of A.o.K.'s most prolific, at least most open minded, studs. He _mostly _went with women because that was just so much easier, especially in a middle state like Kansas. There was far less of a chance they would be completely uninterested or even totally freak out on him for hitting on them. Then there were all the serious closet cases to factor in. They were usually even worse than a testosterone pumped up straight shooter. That lesson was brought to Dean by a right hook to the jaw from a sky eyed looker who was clinging so hard to the door frame of the closet he was falling out of that he'd hit Dean hard on the way out before he could claw his way back inside.

So, yeah, Dean preferred women, but a hottie was a hottie, and by the end of his high school career, his little brother, only one paper-thin wall away, had become all too aware of that fact.

Dean watched the heavy double door to the dorm and munched on a slice of toast with jam. He wasn't supposed to have a toaster in his room but he needed to eat something before class and he couldn't be bothered to visit the dining hall that early. It was a stupid rule anyway.

After a few moments, more than Dean had been expecting, the left door swung open and a lanky teenager with brown hair and an overlarge backpack tumbled through, wearing a brown hoodie and looking totally frazzled. The sweatshirt was pushed up to his elbows, probably because the sleeves were already too short, Dean assumed.

The long haired boy looked around wildly before he finally spotted Dean and rushed over.

"Running a little late today, are we, short-stuff?"

Sam scowled up at his older brother, but it was half hearted at best, as he was distracted by his lateness. He was supposed to meet some of his classmates at the Great Falls Library for some project on local history this morning. Dean had no idea why they would schedule it for early on a Saturday morning, crazy AP kids. Dean didn't care. He had to be up for work anyway so no skin off his back.

"My alarm didn't go off. I'm supposed to be at the library in fifteen minutes," Sam said as he walked past Dean towards the parking lot, looking stressed.

"Relax, shrimp, we'll get there in time," Dean said, grabbing the second slathered piece of toast and the napkin it had been resting on from the retaining wall.

"Shouldn't you lay up on the short cracks, Dean," Sam said, irritated; he was no fun. "You know, I'm not that much shorter than you now."

In all honesty Sam hadn't even had to look up that much to deliver the comment to Dean. He'd been growing like a beanstalk since he hit the ninth grade, and even though he was three years younger than Dean, he was quickly gaining on him in the size department, height at least. Dean wondered if it had anything to do with that monster of a shift of his.

Most strangers would be pretty surprised if you told them that this docile, know-it-all kid could turn into a hulking ten-foot tall bear—and he was far from done growing. Sam's shift was just a strangely ancient as Dean's. Which was a problem.

They tried to keep a low profile, but it was only going to get more difficult to convince people Sam's shift was a grizzly, as he was already pushing their maximum height and was making to move on to the whopping thirteen to fifteen foot standing height of a fully mature short-faced bear. Sam had done the research. They knew what was coming.

It wouldn't have been such a big secret if the world weren't fucking nuts, though.

Changeling civil rights had been won decades ago, but that didn't mean there weren't still raging prejudices and misconceptions among many circles. But the biggest issue in the modern day was Changeling specific human trafficking. It was colloquially and sickeningly termed "poaching" and the more rare a shift was, the more money a poacher could sell them for in the right markets, especially if the human form was attractive, too. There wasn't much certain sick fucks wouldn't pay for a pretty young woman who could become a rare, beautiful parrot, basically seen as a very fancy and expensive pet.

There were only three kinds of shifts, mammalian, avian and reptilian, with mammals and birds being by far the most common, and for that alone, reptile shifted Changelings fetched a prettier penny, but endangered or exotic animal shifts were by far the core of the industry.

This is why Dean was so desperate to keep their shifts for the most part, unpublicized. Very, very rarely there were Changelings with extinct shifts. Someone whose shift was a Tasmanian tiger, or a great auk. Mary Winchester was a passenger pigeon, herself.

Dean assumed that's where his and Sam's shift abnormalities must have come from, as John Winchester was a Normal. However, there could have been some recessive trigger in his genes, Dean supposed. Every Normal on earth, as far as anyone knew, had some amount of Changeling DNA in their genes. It was only ever a matter of it being strong enough to trigger that first shift, or not.

Though some extinct shifts turn up every once in a while, neither Winchester could find a single instance of a Changeling having a prehistoric shift, outside of prehistoric times of course. It just didn't happen.

So with poaching on a rise, and reports of incidents and disappearances occurring more and more frequently, even in America, there were more than enough reasons for Sam and Dean to keep the whole situation on the down low.

Sam was setting a very fast pace to walk to this morning.

"Shut up, shortie," Dean jabbed, realizing the day was coming when Sam was going to be taller than him—a lot taller. "Eat some toast and shut your trap."

Sam opened his mouth to spit back a retort but changed his mind when Dean shoved the toast in his direction and saw that it was obviously meant for him. It had marmalade on it, Sam's favorite. Dean always put blueberry or strawberry on his.

"Thanks," Sam said, casting his eyes down and biting a bit off as they speed walked around the corner of a dorm and into the parking lot.

A warmth entered Dean's eyes as they approached a shining, '96 Chevy Impala, sun glinting ebony off the dark hood. She'd once belonged to John but she was Dean's pride and joy now.

"Come on, Sammy. Let's get you to your nerd buddies."

. . .

As the sun rose higher in the sky, a breeze picked up over Great Falls, Kansas. It tossed and tousled the edges of a trio of shapes on the roof of the local library, hair and garments fluttering in time.

Two shapes sat back a ways, scanning the streets, while the third sat closer the edge of the roof, looking like a stone gargoyle perched on the edge of a castle, if the castle was a cheaply constructed building from the 1980s. He was hidden from sight in the shadow of a large air conditioning vent. Messy, dark hair twitched and flopped in the soft gusts, and a tan trench coat occasionally caught air and flapped around him. Two deep blue eyes watch the parking lot with laser focus. Not a single muscle in his body moved except for the scan of his eyes.

"You can relax, Castiel. There is no way we can miss him while he drives that deafening, smog spitting fossil," a drawling voice reached the young man at the edge of the roof.

The instruction came from a dark skinned, middle aged man from where he sat next to a young woman with fiery red hair who appeared to be the same age as Castiel, if not a little younger. Castiel actually didn't know. It's not like they ever celebrated birthdays in the organization. Whether or not she was younger or older, Anna with her flaming locks out ranked both other operatives present.

"Either way, Uriel, I prefer to keep a constant and vigilant observation," Castiel stated.

He heard a snort behind him.

"Let's see you how 'ever vigilant' you are by the end of your weeks watch," Uriel said.

Uriel had been in Great Falls for the last week, and Castiel had come to relieve him of his duty. As their superior, Anna had come down to receive a report.

"I also enjoy watching the interactions of the civilians," Castiel supplied.

There was a second's pause before Uriel laughed.

"I will never understand why they let you out, Castiel. Or maybe they needed to let you out _more_," Uriel chuckled. "Sometimes I think they actually addled your brain."

"_Uriel_, _that's enough_," Anna cut him off, eyes glinting angrily in his direction. "You know we aren't supposed to discuss that."

Anna's voice had dropped on the last sentence but Castiel had already checked out. Uriel was supposed to be the funniest operative in the Brotherhood of Unchained Souls, the organization, but Castiel only ever understood half of what he said, and none of the jokes. Anna on the other hand seemed to understand, but did not find him funny. As a result, Castiel usually just tuned them both out during conversations like this.

Anna had been different ever since she had disappeared about two years ago. Castiel had been told she'd been put on some covert operations mission and had been gone for a couple months. When she returned to their unit, she had changed. The Brotherhood had never been big on sentimentality or had ever promoted any companionship between its operatives. Castiel had never really had a friend, he had brothers, and sisters, as dictated by the organization, but Anna was one of only two operatives, people as a whole, that Castiel could have ever bestowed the term friend upon. They were in the same training program together, ever since Castiel was six. They never got deserts or sweets very often but when they did, it wasn't rare for Anna to slip him most or all of hers. She had tended to Castiel when he had been injured and she looked at him with something warmer in her eyes than any other brother or sister of Castiel.

She'd been different when she'd returned from her absence though. She was harder. There was no shine of warmth in her eyes. She had been made captain of their unit, and she had led them firmly and surely since. Sometimes Castiel thought maybe he saw a glimmer of something familiar when she spoke to him, but he was never sure, nor was it his place to ask after it.

Instead of listening to the bickering of Anna and Uriel, Castiel currently focused on the slowly waking town; the people with coffee and papers, the ones gathering with growing abundance at a greasy spoon across the street. Most of them were probably Normals. Castiel had been well told how violent and cruel the locked-souls could be, but they were to be pitied, not hated, and Castiel found watching them interesting none the less.

After a moment something caught Castiel's eye.

"He's here," Castiel said, cutting into Anna and Uriel's continued squabbling.

All three of the strange lurkers went silent as they watched a gleaming, black, classic car pull into the library parking lot.

"Are you ready Castiel?" Anna asked. "From what I've seen and heard from the organization and Uriel's report, they could call it this week."

Castiel watched a tall teenager slide clumsily out of the passenger door of the rumbling vehicle.

"Yes, Anna," Castiel said absently, catching a glimpse of a face smiling at the leaving boy, mostly obscured by the sunlight glinting off the windshield.

Castiel heard his fellow operatives raise and back away from the edge of the roof, preparing for their own departure.

"Be careful, Castiel," Anna added. "La Espina is said to be pulling farther north all the time. Some of their poachers have been seen just past the Oklahoma border."

Castiel nodded sharply.

Nothing would harm Dean Winchester under his watch.

. . .

Dean left the scrap yard late that night. Sam had gotten a ride home with one of his group members, so Bobby had let Dean pick up a couple extra hours at the garage. Even so, it was still light outside when Dean turned the key and the Impala rumbled to life.

He flipped open his phone and hit speed dial one.

"Hello?"

A familiar voice crackled through the line.

"Hey, Sammy, I just got off work. You still on for a run tonight?" Dean said, turning out of the scrap yard once handed.

"Yeah, of course," Sam said.

As a younger Changeling, Sam was almost always in need of a good trip into the woods to stretch out and exercise that hulk of a bear inside him.

"Oka—"

Dean had gotten the first half out of his mouth before he trailed off and stared as a figure on the side of the road caught his eye. There was a boy standing on the side of the road, only a hundred yards or so from Bobby's scrap yard. He was almost shrouded by the trees, and Dean probably wouldn't have noticed him if he'd just been leaning against a tree, anything. There were Changelings all over this town. A kid in the woods was nothing to bat an eye at.

However, this boy stood stalk straight, facing the road, and as Dean's eyes tracked him for what seemed like a slow motion series of seconds while the wheels of his car turned and his neck twisted, as if he couldn't turn away. If he didn't know any better he would have said the boy's head turned, too.

"Dean?"

The college student started and put the phone back to his ear, eyes gluing back to the road.

"Great," Dean said. "I'll meet you at the changing rooms behind Ellison in twenty."

He snapped the phone shut, tossed it into the passenger seat, and then risked a glance into his rearview mirrors, but he didn't see a thing.

. . .

_ Irritation. _**Dean! **_Confusion_.

Dean's currently furry and elongated face snapped upwards and toward the massive, shaggy shape to his right. The familiar touch of Sam's shift-speak drawing his attention back to his brother.

Shift speech was the method by which Changelings communicated in shifted form, a limited form of telepathy. A Changeling could use a mix of feelings and words to convey a point to another Changeling, dependent upon the ability of the speaker and the familiarity between the Changelings. There were very rare instances of two Changelings having the inherent ability to speak as easily to one another as they could in human from, right from the first moment they met. Such bonds had heavy cultural connotations but happened only among two in a million. Mary used to tell Dean that if John had been a Changeling they would have had an open bond, as such a connection is called. It had once made Dean smile to know that he had parents that were so in love, and maybe she had been right. It was said that if one half of an open bonded pair of Changelings died then the other was never the same. It seemed to fit well enough.

Most adult Changelings became at least sufficiently adept at communicating through shift speak, at least to get a clear point across to a stranger, but most young Changelings couldn't manage much more than some fuzzy impressions across to a unfamiliar party. Sam was particularly good at it already, though, and could speak nearly fluently to any acquaintances and could even communicate rather well with strangers, which was saying something considering how much they avoided exposing their shifted forms to just anyone. There were shift speech classes available to high school and above students at Academies, but for that very same reason neither Winchester had taken one yet.

Dean had never been very good at shift speech, nor had he ever put a whole lot of effort into getting any better. He was well close enough to Sam to converse fluently with him, so it hadn't ever been that much of a problem.

Sam looked down at him with what Dean recognized as frustration in his eyes. He'd been practicing shift speech by telling Dean all about his biology class and Dean really hadn't heard a damn word. The familiar woods felt strange and it wasn't uncommon for Normals or even Changelings in human form to go on hikes to the Refuge, but it seemed to Dean like the woods smelled more human than normal.

**Sorry, Sammy. **_Contrite._

His small furry ears twitched, as he stepped over a log that Dean had to leap over. The kid was really getting big.

_Concern. Fatigue. Stress. Confusion._

They could both fairly easily speak to each other in English via shift speak but they knew each other well enough that the much easier impressions got the questions across just as well. It was easy for Dean to understand that Sam was asking if he was tired—if everything was okay, all wrapped into a series of his feelings and projected impressions.

_Ease. Reassurance._

I'm fine, Dean assured, before glancing up as Sam ducked under a low hanging branch.

_Displeasure. _**So when are you going to stop growing, Sammy? I'm the big brother. You're messing up the natural order of things.**

Sam's eyes sparkled and it was clear he was smiling.

_Happiness. _**It's not my fault you're a little puppy. **_Amusement_.

Dean growled and snapped at the short-faced bear's heels. He was a _dire wolf _not a puppy and Sam knew it. He was one hundred and sixty pounds of pure awesome.

**Bitch.**

Sam stumbled away as Dean's jaws snapped and the amulet swung from his ruffed neck.

**Jerk!**Sam retorted as he stumbled away and into the trunk of a tree.

The sun was touching the horizon by the time the two brothers traipsed back onto the campus lawn behind Ellison Hall. They walked towards a low, long building that squatted alone on the field. From the campus side it had a single door and looked much the same as a pool locker room, but on the forest side it looked different. There were no walls, only curtains that separated booths from the outside air. There were numbers hanging from roof in front of each stall. There were also numbers on the outsides of the inner door as well as a bench and a couple empty bins on the inside of each booth. It was in these rooms that students could strip, store their clothes and shift before going into the woods to exercise their shift forms.

Most were about eight by eight feet, but there were a number of larger ones to the far end. It was in that direction they headed. Dean could always use a normal one, but Sam had outgrown them two years ago.

Dean pushed is way around the curtain of booth 21, as Sam daintily used one of his giant paws to push aside the curtain on booth 22.

There were a couple other people moving up and down the path from the changing rooms behind Ellison. It was a popular time for students to go into the forest, especially for Changelings with nocturnal shifts.

Dean walked with his hands in his pockets next to his brother, Sam talking animatedly about his psychology class now.

"How are your grades in all these AP classes?" Dean asked, knowing they were nearing the end of the school year now.

Sam beamed.

"Should get all A's again!" Sam said, hefting his messenger back up farther on his shoulder, as he'd come straight from a study hall.

"Atta boy," Dean said, ruffling his hair, fighting the little flash of depression that had been flaring up in him more and more as the years went by.

Dean was really proud of Sam. Nobody could have been more proud, honestly, but each A was another weight on the scale that tipped it in favor of a one-way ticket for Sam right out of Kansas, and far away from Dean. Sam deserved it, though. He was too good for this podunk town in a nowhere state.

Dean looked away from Sam just as another student passed him, body moving through his periphery. Maybe it was instinct but his body twisted, recognition sparking, but by the time he turned all he saw was the swish of a tan trench coat and the back of head covered in dark, messy hair.


	2. Chapter 2

Warnings for this chapter include swearing, violence and sexual references. Also technically, side character death.

Thank you so much to my betas and the people who tolerate working with me on this story. You can find them on tumblr at the urls timeywimeyimpala, deanwhereisyourcock and idfuckdean. You are all the best. You can also find me at .com for any questions on the fic, or the changeling!verse as a whole.

Enjoy!

**Chapter Two:**

_Expect poison from the standing water._

The walls of the ICU were tan and benign, but the chaos of a busy hospital all but cancelled out any subconscious comfort they had to offer. Dean's feet hung from a cheap waiting chair, legs too short to reach the floor. His father was hunched over in the chair next to Dean's. Six-month-old Sammy was tucked into his mobile car seat on the next chair. The ICU was loud, but they were as quiet as stone.

Mom had looked like she was sleeping when they carried her from the house. She'd been sick, so Dad had taken Dean and baby Sam out to dinner. They'd gone to pizza, and Dad had let Dean play a few arcade games while they waited for their food.

She had taken cough medicine, the doctors would later explain. She'd fallen asleep. The fire had spread so fast they said.

The firemen had already arrived by the time Dad had pulled onto their street. There was a fire truck. It was big and red, like the one Dean had been allowed to climb inside of one day at preschool when firemen came to teach them about fire safety.

"Stay in the car," Dad had said as he got out to talk to the men in the big yellow jackets, but the widows were cracked, and even though Dean was too young to understand exactly what they meant, he caught flashes of words like "stairs collapsed", "tried to shift", "small lungs", "loss of consciousness" and "smoke inhalation."

She had really looked like she was sleeping, except there had been a strange brace around her neck and she was wrapped in a bright orange blanket instead the heavy afghan they kept on the couch, or the navy blue duvet of his parents bed that settled heavily over Dean when he crawled into bed next to his mother after a nightmare.

Dad hadn't said a word since they got to the hospital, and Dean didn't dare break the silence, not even with a thousand questions raging inside him.

Down the hall a door opened and a man in a white coat stepped through. Dad shot to his feet as the doctor came closer. Dean slid over into his father's vacated chair; hand slipping into Sammy's car seat as the baby began to babble with malcontent, instinctually trying to sooth him. Dean's focus, however, was on the adults. Dean felt chubby, baby fingers fiddle with his hand, gripping his thumb and pinky, but he didn't look down.

Dean didn't hear what the doctor said. Dean was just a little boy resting the weight of his world on the crumbling, numb face of his father.

The doctor nodded towards the room he'd come from, said something else and then walked away. Dad didn't move. Sam's upset murmuring was escalating.

"D-Dad? Is Mom okay?" Dean finally couldn't resist asking.

John Winchester didn't look at his boys. Sam was tugging harder at Dean's fingers as the babbles grew to a cry.

"Dad?" Dean knew his voice was getting desperate, tears pricking his eyes.

He didn't know what was going on but, as all kids could, he sensed the desolation in his father, who _still_ wasn't moving, still wouldn't look at his son. Dean sensed the utter despair. Sam cried louder.

"Dad…?" Dean whispered, tear sliding down his cheek, willing his dad to tell him it was okay, tell him anything at all.

He never did, not really. Instead he uttered a set of words for the first, but not the last, time and unwittingly set in stone the fate of one of his sons.

"Take care of your brother, Dean," John said, and then, like a zombie, he made his way towards the door down the hall.

Dean watched him go, the tears overflowing rapidly now, but no sound escaped him. He reached into the car seat and pulled his baby brother into his lap, arms around his back. Baby hands fisted into his shirt and Sam cried into his chest, not even knowing he had a real reason to cry.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean whispered, lost and scared, life as he knew it falling down around him.

It was the first time Dean had ever said that to his brother, first time he'd had to, but as with his father, it was nowhere near the last.

"_Take care of your brother…"_

A steady beat throbbed up through Dean's feet as the shitty music they were playing at the house party leaked all the way down to the foundation. There was a surprisingly large mix of people in attendance, considering it was a Sunday night. The living room where Dean leaned against the far wall was saturated with red cups and bodies milling around without apparent purpose. Dean had one hand in his pocket and the other around a half drunk cup of beer. He didn't usually have to worry about getting home after a party. He either went home with someone, ended up with someone _at _the party, or on an off night he would just shift and run home.

The dark curly haired girl standing next to him in a Ramones tee shirt looked him up and down once with a bemused raise of an eyebrow.

"What's stuck up your ass tonight, hot stuff?" Pamela asked.

Pamela was one of the few people who Dean could call a real friend. He had never made them easily, even with his reputation as a player at school, but Pamela was hard to ignore, and she might even beat Dean when it came to the game of flirting. The brunette was actually a Normal from Great Falls. Dean had met her at the burger joint where she worked, but coming from a town so close to an academy she readily hitched a ride on its party scene. If either one of them needed a wing man for a night, they were on each other's speed dials.

She was into a lot of weird psychic crap, but she was funny, and put up with Dean's shit with a wink and a silver tongued comeback every time.

"You haven't even flirted with anyone tonight," the sharp eyed young woman continued.

Dean didn't look at her, and took a healthy gulp of beer that could barely pass for piss water.

"I don't know," Dean shrugged. "Something's been eating at me for days, weeks really. But it's gotten worse lately."

"What, your puppy senses tingling?" Pamela asked, tongue touching her lips in a cheeky expression.

Dean smirked without much humor and took another drink as he and Pamela continued to observe the herd.

"Something like that," Dean said.

Pamela's eyes hopped around the room.

"You worry too much," she said. "Quit stressing yourself out and use that doggy nose of yours to sniff me out a beau."

Pamela knew that Dean always had something to stress about, what with Dean basically raising his younger brother, but she also knew what obsessing did to Dean, and never interrogated him like Sam did when he sensed there was something up.

"Who says I don't want to keep you all to myself, sweetheart?" Dean tossed towards his friend.

Flirting was an integral part of their relationship, though they'd never once actually done anything—it was all talk between them.

"Oh, your sweet ass is welcome anytime, big boy. That is, if you think you could handle all of this," Pamela teased, not even looking at him, eyes glued onto the other kids on the prowl.

Dean had been preparing a highly elegant retort, composed primarily of four letter words, but Pamela spoke before Dean had a chance to spit it out.

"Oh shit. Stacy Callahan is here," Pamela said with wide eyes, and if Dean slammed himself back against the wall and started looking around wildly, that was nobody's business but his own.

"Fuck! Where!"

Dean had every right to be a little nervous about the presence of a girl who had sworn to rip his nutsack off. Surprisingly, it wasn't actually the one night stand that Dean had with her last November that had gotten her so royally pissed. It _may _have had more to do with how she caught him crawling out of her twin brother's window the following night—_maybe._

Either way, Dean was desperately looking for an exit, eyes frantically scanning for the fastest way to the door without putting himself directly into the warpath of a girl who possessed the ability to burst into a savannah cat with junk homing claws at will. That was when Dean spotted him—or more accurately, made direct, intense eye contact with him.

The boy looked scrawny under a too large trench coat, and there was a mass of messy dark hair atop his head. While it was the coat that had sparked recognition in Dean, it was two impossibly blue eyes that held his attention. Dean could see the vibrancy of them all the way across the room, as the boy stood by the door to the entryway. It was like the room had gone fuzzy and sluggish except for where Dean hyper focused on the pale skinned boy who stared unabashedly back at him—the one who had been following him for a couple days now. There was not a single doubt in his mind. Dean _knew_. He'd been outside the scrap yard, and he'd been catching phantom glimpses of him all over campus.

"Son of a _bitch_," Dean hissed and then he was moving, pushing through the crowd, a million worst case scenarios flying through his head.

"Hey, watch it, dick!" someone complained as Dean almost ran completely into them in his haste.

Dean only spared him a venomous glance before he moved on, no matter how much his panic demanded he yell, '_Listen up, asshole. Some douchebag is following me and, for all I know, fucking __**poachers**__ could be after my brother and I's sweet prehistoric asses so you can suck my dick!' _But unfortunately, Dean didn't have the time.

Instead he looked up to catch the sight of his stalker, but bodies were now in the way.

"Fuck!" Dean cursed as he continued on.

A few seconds later, Dean caught himself against the doorframe jarringly, head whipping back and forth, everywhere, but the mysterious, blue eyed boy was nowhere to be seen.

A few days passed and Dean was beside himself with stress, twitchy and irritable. Even if he hadn't seen the blue-eyed stalker since the party, he still swore he had caught a silhouette in the evening, or the hem of a trench coat flipping around a corner. It was so bad that even Sam had noticed.

"Come on, Dean," Sam complained. "You're stressing yourself out for no reason. If poachers were around we would have heard about it. We are in _Kansas_. They pluck from border states. They don't dare to come this far."

Sam knew that Dean was stressed about the poachers that were supposedly in Oklahoma, but Dean hadn't told him about his stalker. That sounded a little too paranoid coming out of his mouth.

Dean practically growled over his crappy, dorm pizza.

"No way in hell," Dean said.

Sam scowled but it was mixed with that horrible, beaten-puppy look he'd perfected at age three. Dean liked to think he'd out grown its power, but he'd be lying if he were totally free from its influence.

"Dean, it's not like anyone knows what we are," Sam tried. "How would they even—"

Dean's scoff drenched with contempt cut the teen off.

"Oh, don't try to feed me that bullshit, Sam," Dean said, eyes narrowing and turning his head away and back scornfully before continuing. "Like there aren't rumors flying over campus. You're the freaking _hulk, _Sam—and anyone who's even seen a picture of a grizzly and has half a brain is calling our bluff, and don't even _try _to tell me that your little geek squad of friends haven't figured it out."

Sam's brow furrowed and he looked even more like a kicked puppy. Dean didn't mean to be harsh, but he was worried and it was the only way he knew how to express that.

"Yeah, but, Dean…"

"No!"

At that, Sam's face hardened and Dean's instincts flared.

Sam had three stages of persuasion, almost always the same three. There was the puppy-eyes phase, followed by the logic phase and crowned with what Dean liked to call the "screw you, I'll sneak out and go the first grade art fair all by my six year old self and get my brother _reamed _by our suddenly present father" phase.

Sam was getting dangerously close to the last.

"Dean, if one of us slip shifts because we haven't exercised, don't you think might start taking a bit more? You know, when a _giant bear_ explodes in their biology class!" Sam said, still trying to reason with his brother.

Irritatingly though, the punk had a point. Slip shifting was fairly commonplace at academies. After that first unplanned and radical shift, it wasn't unusual for a young Changeling to shift suddenly and involuntarily. It could be triggered by stress, or a highly emotional state, instinct, or even without any apparent stimulus at all. It was just a part of growing up. The inclination to slip was also highly exacerbated by refusing to shift or exercise a shift regularly. Even mature Changelings could slip shift if they resisted the change for too long.

"_Fine!_" Dean finally acquiesced, grabbing his dinner tray and heading for the exit, refusing to look back to check if Sam was following.

Dean hated to admit it, but it did feel fantastic to let the wolf out to run. He loved to feel the wind in his fur, and the smell of the nearby marsh ebbing through the trees. In some ways, Dean felt more at home here, under the sky and the trees, than any other place since he was four. Changelings were always one hundred percent in control of the shadows of animal instincts they carried in their minds, but the shadow was just enough to let Dean pull away sometimes—pull away from the memories, from his responsibilities and weariness, and from his growing fears, both immediate and long term.

Sam was with him for now, but they stayed mostly silent and it was strangely peaceful. Dean looked up at the burnt orange spring sky. Summer would be here soon, days filled with long hours at the shop, followed by hot nights filled with shadily procured beer and whisky and the occasional hook up. Dean was thinking about taking Sammy on a road trip to the ocean. They'd never been to the ocean. It wasn't a whole lot to look forward to, but it wasn't a bad prospect.

As they came towards a clearing, Dean was actually opening up his mind to broadcast an approximation of a thank you to Sam for convincing him to come out, or at least the small indication of gratitude that passed as a thank you between them. It wouldn't do to inflate that kid's ego anymore than he had to, Dean thought, but then a breeze swelled up, and Dean's sinuses filled. Half a second later his hackles were standing on end. His mind roared and red flags flew up, overwhelming everything.

Dean wished he had a little more of the wolf's instincts in him. Maybe then he would have felt it sooner, noticed quicker the way the leaves in the clearing were all wrong. All over there were patches of wet faced leaves… but it hadn't rained in days.

They had been disturbed.

_Alarm! Danger! _**Sam! **_Urgency. Danger. _**Get back! **_Danger!_

Dean turned to leap towards his brother, force his mammoth shape back out of the clearing, but as his hind leg moved forward, he felt his toes catch on something, and then that something gave. Dean felt a rope snap painfully tight around his ankle and drag him backwards towards an old maple tree.

Eyes still on Sam, Dean saw the exact moment his brother took an involuntary bound towards him, only wanting to help.

**No, Sam!**

It was too late. One big bear paw sank into a pile of turned leaves. There was a crack as Sam's left shoulder dropped an inch, right through the trip of the net now closing around him.

It was bad enough already, but suddenly they weren't alone in the clearing. Two men dropped from the trees, streaked with mud and reeking of mildew. They must have freaking _bathed _in the marsh. No wonder Dean hadn't smelled them sooner. One dropped from the tree about Dean and the other was making his way towards Sam, wielding a syringe. Dean would be anything it was filled with a shift suppressant or a tranquilizer, probably both.

Shift suppressors were mostly used by doctors to treat Changeling's with severe injures who would mess up the doctor's work, possibly fatally, if they were to shift. Since Changelings have to shift at least every couple days, setting a broken bone or surgery could get tricky. Before the invention of shift suppressors in the early 1900s, Changelings often had to be treated in their shifted form and remain in that form long enough to heal, sometimes weeks.

However, when a dose is injected into a shifted Changeling, it forces a highly unpleasant reversal into human form. It was a favorite of cartels and human traffickers. Even police carried a refined version for emergency situations.

Whatever was in that syringe though, Dean couldn't let them get to Sam.

Growls had been ripping from Dean's throat since he had realized there was something wrong, but now they were shaking all the way up from his core, fearsome and deafening as Dean pulled against his restraints, trying to get at the man closest to him.

The first poacher wasn't very big, but he was corded with muscle and had a merciless glint in his eye. He too was armed with a full syringe. Dean forced himself to wait until the man got closer, attention split three ways. Part was on Sam and on his one free foreleg tipped with four-inch claws that made the tall man approaching him exceptionally wary. Part was on escaping the snare he was caught with, but a single glance told him the knot only tightened, didn't loosen. He couldn't gnaw through it in time and if he shifted back and tried to untie himself or steal the closest poacher's knife and cut himself free without causing serious damage to his ankle, which was considerably larger in human form than in shifted form.

A very large proportion of his focus rested on a pointed needle and the express goal of keeping it the fuck out of his body.

The poacher came one step closer, then two, sweat leaving tracks in the muck on his face, and then Dean lunged, faking his snapping jaws towards the poacher's ankles before planting his forepaws and shoot up towards his wrist, leaving divots in the soft earth. Dean had meant to clamp his jaws over the man's arm, but he dodged. However, Dean's skull still impacted his target with enough force to send the syringe flying and into the leaves.

A bear bellowed.

_Fear. _**Dean! **_Panic!_

Dean's ears snapped forward as his head swung towards Sam and sick dread filled his gut. The other poacher was bearing down on the bear in the growing darkness. Dean wasn't going to make it. He was about to go to plan B and sacrifice all the bones in his ankle in a desperate attempt to reach Sam, but he froze in shock as a splitting snarl shot through the air from behind Sam's massive struggling body.

Then there was a streak of white flashing through the air, over Sam and barreling right into the man threatening his brother. It hit high on his chest and followed by the weight of the foreign beast, the taller man fell far and he fell _hard. _He didn't move after colliding with the ground.

On and above him stood some kind of big cat, shoulders hunched, paws centered on the man's chest, head bowed with its landing. It was about the size of a cougar, if differently shaped, and was nearly pure white, except for its legs and thrashing tail which were touched with grey, as if someone had dipped his toes and tail in ink, letting it soak up.

Then the Changeling's head snapped up and everything went from slow motion to time-stopped for just a second as a set of blue eyes locked with Dean's.

Now Dean had never seen the ocean first hand, but when he had daydreamed about it, it was the same color blue as the eyes of the cat. The Changeling's might be even bluer.

The whimsical, slow motion thought came first, but then it was blown to bits as the second thought hit him like a freight train.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen eyes so blue.

**YOU!**

The thought burst from him with enough force that the complete stranger might have actually heard him. Though, if he had, he made no indication. The feline's eyes jumped way from Dean's and laser focused on the remaining poacher. Time returned to normal.

Dean's assailant had been thoroughly distracted by his companion's defeat, and he'd halted his attack, instead focusing on the compressed storm cloud coiling to spring straight towards him. Dean was ashamed to admit he couldn't move a muscle, confused and restricted by the snare, and he couldn't have reached the poacher if he'd tried.

Dean couldn't help but whisper in his mind when the Changeling's muscles snapped tight and released, a slingshot stretched to its limit, _'And fire.'_

The second poacher didn't go down as easily as the first, element of surprise lost. The man pulled out a small club, and pressed it up against the cat's neck as he fell to the earth, two bodies locked and rolling. They twisted on the ground only a few feet away from Dean, just out of reach, snarls and curses ringing in the twilight air along with the fallen leaves they kicked up.

For just a second the writhing mass of human and white fur broke apart and the blue-eyed Changeling snarled, raised a wide paw, and then swung it into the man's temple with a precise and final blow.

There was a moment of silence and the mysterious, stalker Changeling rose shakily to his paws. Dean hadn't seen him receive and serious blows, however the cat seemed highly unsteady on his feet. He winced and then dropped his head, releasing a pained hiss.

The four species in the clearing were suddenly reduced to three as the blue eyed Changeling shifted out, became human, naked and on all fours. He unsuccessfully tried to rise from the mulch, and then seemed to settle for a half crawl using his hands to help him move.

Changelings were less sensitive to nudity, by exposure and necessity, than Normals, but even so, and even with a million other wary thoughts racing through his head, Dean had to admit the feline shifted boy was attractive. He looked about Dean's age, and even trembling and limp, Dean could see the lean muscle moving under his pale skin as his hands moved over the body of the smaller poacher, searching for something. He was far more in shape than Dean had given him credit for at the party. Dean couldn't help but notice the graceful line of his spine and the narrow slant of his hips, just for a second.

Then there was a knife in his hand and Dean instantly forgot anything he thought about the boy's pleasant appearance.

Sam, who had been watching, still as a statue, from his restraints, grunted a warning, pulling at the net. Dean was already growling low in his chest, backing awkwardly away as the boy moved clumsily towards him, stumbling, not even seeming to have the strength to lift his head.

He dropped to his knees in front of Dean and the wolf debated on whether or not to bite the stalker's throat out now, just to be safe. He doubted the woozy Changeling could stop him. For reasons unknown, Dean hesitated to attack.

The knife rose up and distantly Dean heard Sam bellow as Dean snarled sharply in warning, readying himself to lunge.

_Desperation. _**Dean! **_Terror._

The boy then looked up to met Dean's hostile green eyes—blue, so blue.

"I won't hurt you," a low voice slipped past chapped pink lips, and Dean couldn't help but notice how his narrow shoulders shook, despite the determination in his eyes.

Dean didn't fasten his jaws around the Changeling's soft throat. Something in his voice, his gaze… Dean believed him—at least in this particular moment.

The knife came down, slow and deliberate, and Dean didn't even watch, green eyes still locked on blue. Finally the strange Changeling looked away, releasing Dean. What was it with this guy?

The boy worked the knife carefully between Dean's hind leg and the loop of the snare. His motions were weak and he struggled, but finally the edge of the knife sawed through the final strand of the rope. Dean was free.

Then the boy collapsed, face first into the musty leaves. Dean was totally lost, adrenaline flooded and confused, but for now everything could wait.

Dean shifted out, hair on his arms rising as the night chill touched his skin. He plucked the knife from the blue-eyed boy's fingers and rushed over to Sam, who met him with a confused and questioning rumble that Dean mostly ignored, too high-strung.

"Stay in hulk mode," was all Dean said as he made quick work of the net holding Sam down.

Dean's eyes constantly flashed to the shadowy trees and towards the now prone body lying in the leaves.

As soon as he was done, Dean shifted so he could talk to Sam, once again insulated with fur.

**Sam, are you okay?**_Concern._

Dean's nose snuffled over Sam's furry face, an unconscious appraisal of his state.

_Assurance. _**I'm okay. **_Distraction. _**Dean, what just happened?**

His big head was raised over Dean's to look at the body of the Changeling who had come to their rescue—and who was stalking him, Dean added in his head, stoking the fires of distrust in his gut. Despite this turn of events, the presence of the strange boy couldn't bring good news.

Together, the brothers carefully approached, and Dean finally discovered the cause of the Changeling's odd behavior after he defeated the poachers. From low on his calf, sprouted a half depressed syringe. He must have rolled onto it during the scuffle.

**What do we do? **_Shell-shocked. Curious._

While Sam's curiosity seemed to be holding back the necessary freak out these events called for, Dean's hackles were still up.

**We get the hell out of here and call the fucking police.**

Sam's ears and nose twitched and he swung his head towards his brother.

**What about him? **_White. Fast. _**What if they wake up? **_Disgust. Cruelty. Fear. _**He could be hurt. We can't leave him here.**

It was easy to tell from the impressions under Sam's questions that he was talking about the cat shifted boy lying at their feet and then the poachers. Dean's eyes narrowed and his ears flattened slightly.

**No… he's coming with us. **_Conflict._** We'll make sure he's okay… and when he wakes up, I have some questions to ask.**

Sam cocked his head questioningly but Dean continued to gaze down at the pale boy on the ground, dark hair splayed across the leaves. His head was turned to the side and Dean could see the way his eyelashes brushed his cheek. He looked small… for a creature that had just taken down two fully-grown men.

With that thought, Dean steeled himself. Yeah, he needed answers.


End file.
